


Life is hard. Then it's beautiful.

by jaydenbell



Series: Too Right To Be Wrong (or, the endless reasons two people are meant for each other) [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-26
Updated: 2011-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaydenbell/pseuds/jaydenbell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel Berry had a plan for her life. That changed in an instant. But Noah would never let her forget her dreams</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is hard. Then it's beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for a prompt at the drabble meme on LJ. Prompt: "How can I fix it?" "You can't."

Two weeks away from graduation. She was headed to New York City in the fall. She had a plan. Her life was as close to perfect right now as anybody’s could be.

Which is why Puck had no idea why she was crying so hard she could barely breathe. He finally realized that as being her boyfriend, she would come to him for emotional support; he was starting to get used to that part of a relationship. But not having answers, that part sucked.

“Shh, Rachel, baby. Please, you have to calm down. Tell me what’s wrong. How can I fix it?” he stroked her hair as he held her, her face pressed into his chest, her small fists gripping his shirt as she sobbed.

Coughing as she tried to catch her breath, she looked up at him with red eyes and shook her head. “You can’t,” was all she managed before she was crying again.

It was an hour before she stopped crying. He had moved them over to his bed and held her in his lap, his arms never leaving her, his own heart breaking that she was so upset. This wasn’t her usual dramatic upset that had her shedding a single tear and then getting right back to business; this was something much worse. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

When she had calmed down and finally felt like air was moving through her lungs again, he rubbed her back. “You wanna go take a shower and cool off?”

She nodded against his shoulder before he stood up and grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of his smallest shorts from the dresser. Never letting go of her hand, he walked into the bathroom with her and pulled a clean towel from the shelf. He only moved away from her long enough to hang the towel on the bar for her and set the clothes on the counter. “I’ll be right outside when you’re finished.” He kissed her forehead and walked out of the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him. He stopped and turned back when she opened it back up a few inches, then turned to start the shower.

Any other day, he might have laughed and asked her if that was an invitation (already knowing the answer was no). But any other day, he hadn’t seen her break down like her world was going to end.

He sat on the end of his bed and dropped his head down into his hands, his elbows on his knees. “What the hell is going on here,” he mumbled to nobody.

Ten minutes later, the shower stopped. A few minutes after that, she padded out of the bathroom, wet hair tied back in a loose bun, the string of his shorts pulled tight around her waist as the ends of the shorts danced over her knees. She looked so cute in his clothes. And had his mind not been filled with worry, he might have said as much.

He reached out and took her outstretched hand and pulled her back to the bed with him, both of them turning sideways so they could still touch but face each other. He never let go of her hand as she struggled with something that was obviously forcing its way to the surface again.

“Noah, I…” she shook her head and tried again. “A few weeks ago I was…” she struggled to get the words out before she started crying again. Her eyes were already filled with tears.

“Baby, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

That made her bottom lip quiver. She finally looked up at him and took a deep breath. “Noah, eight weeks ago I was raped. This afternoon I took a pregnancy test.”

And just like that, his world came crashing down right along with hers. His own eyes filled with tears as he tried to get his mind to stop moving in a thousand different directions all at once. Instead, all he could do was pull her back into his lap as they both cried. Several minutes later, they both stopped crying, and just sat holding onto each other.

Finally, he moved her off his lap again and looked at her, not letting go of her hands to wipe his eyes. “Rachel, I honestly have so much going through my head right now, and I wish I could say it all in one breath and just be done, but nothing I say or do is going to make this better.” He blinked and another tear fell. “I am so so so sorry it happened to you, but please hear me when I say that I love you, and that is never going to change.”

She nodded. They had said those words before. But they never hit her as hard as they did just now. She expected him to ask questions, and she was sure he had them, but all he did was love her. And she realized now more than ever that he would always be there for her. “I love you too,” she tried to smile.

“I um, we should talk…about everything, but it needs to be when you’re ready.” He lifted her chin with his fingertips and gave her a questioning look. “Do your dads know about this?”

She bit her lip, still fighting between speaking and gasping out sobs. She took a deep breath. “They know about the rape. They don’t know I’m pregnant. I came right over here after I took the test. I just…I stared at it for ten minutes and felt like I was going to be sick if I was near it any longer.”

“You know we have to tell them,” he said softly.

Her heart skipped when he said ‘we’…he really wasn’t going anywhere no matter how tough things got. “I know. I just needed to see you. I needed to know that you still loved me. I needed to not feel like my world had been turned upside down.”

He slid up on the bed and tugged her hand for her to follow. Laying on their sides, they looked at each other through tear-burned eyes, and tangled their feet together, her little hand still gripping his for dear life. She held it close to her heart as they laid there and eventually she started talking.

“I reported it to the police,” she started somewhere in the middle of his thoughts. “They found the guy. He’s been arrested with no bail set; he’s a repeat offender. I’ll have to testify later this month.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “I went to the hospital afterward…I don’t really remember much of that to be honest. Mostly just my dads taking me home at some point with a pill bottle in my pocket.” She shrugged. “I took the pills, I bled so much, and I thought that was it. But then I never got my period again after that. They said it might take a while, but it had been weeks and…I just had this nagging fear in the back of my mind that the pills didn’t work somehow.”

“So you took a pregnancy test,” he finished for her. Somehow, of all the uncomfortable conversations he’d had in his life, this one was the worst. He didn’t care that she was talking about her period like he normally would have. He didn’t care that she was being so blunt with information about her body that usually made him uncomfortable. That all seemed so trivial now. What killed him was that she had been raped, that she had been quiet about the whole incident and pretended everything was fine, that she felt she had to do that in the first place.

“I swear, I thought my insides were going to come up when I saw that positive. All three of them.” She took a deep breath, finally starting to calm down, but tears still filling her eyes and voice. “I’m eighteen years old,” she said in a way that broke his heart all over again. “I’m graduating high school in two weeks. And I’ve been accepted to the school of my dreams in the city I’ve always wanted to take by storm. And now…” she shrugged, closing her eyes and letting another tear silently fall.

“Hey, hey,” he chastised gently. “None of that is going to change.” When she looked up at him, he noted the look in her eyes and shook his head. “No, I’m not saying that. You have a tough decision to make, and I’ll respect you no matter what. But heads or tails, your dreams are still within reach.”

“Noah, I’ll be due right around finals. I have partial scholarship for dance. I have to get a part-time job to pay for my books and food and materials for school. There’s no way I can do all of that with a baby on the way. And then I would have to figure out what to do once the baby arrived. Money. Childcare and insurance and an apartment and living expenses…where would I get a job like that to support the both of us and still be able to go to school?” Her voice was shaking again. “I had everything planned out. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do. All because of one horrible night and a bastard who screwed everything up.”

“No,” his voice was stern this time. “Don’t let him win. He doesn’t get to have that.” He pulled her close and kept his eyes trained on her. “Your life is yours to live, no matter what kind of curveballs you get.” Taking a deep breath he pushed himself up and turned toward his nightstand. Reaching in and to the back, he pulled out a little box and sat up, pulling her up with him. He held the box in the palm of his hand between them as he spoke. “Rachel, I bought this two weeks ago. I planned on proposing on graduation day. I’m not going to do that anymore because you have too much on your plate. I’m going to help you get through this, I’m going to help you with everything, because I love you with all my heart and I only want the best for you. For us.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. “Rachel. You’re strong. The strongest and most determined person I know. Your dreams have taken a left turn, but they’re not gone.”

For the first time in hours, Rachel managed a small smile, one that made it all the way up to her eyes for a moment. “You’re still going to propose at some point right? I mean, I agree with you, I’m too overwhelmed for anything else right now. But…I would have been ready to say yes in two weeks if it wasn’t for all this. I still want to say yes.”

He smiled too. “I’m holding onto this. I still plan on asking you, when you’re ready.”

She leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips, her hand cradling his neck. “I um, I think we should go talk to my dads now.”

**

Holding his hand tight, she walked back through her front door, calling out to her dads. All sitting down in the living room together, she never let her body lose contact with his as she told her parents what happened to her that afternoon. They all cried together, then Puck jumped back in with making sure she didn’t give up her dreams.

They talked all night and came up with a new plan, all deciding that there was wiggle room in the new plan for anything unexpected to come their way and be kicked right back out the door. Rachel and Noah were going to turn down their acceptances to NYU and stay in Ohio for another year. Both would remain living with their parents and saving money. Puck was going to start on his education at Lima Community College for a semester until the baby was born, then he was going to work full time to support the two of them until she could go back to work as well…..

Through all of this, Rachel debated back and forth with herself about whether or not she should be letting him change his whole life around to fit hers. But the way his hand held hers firmly, she realized he would have never left her behind and was going to face all of this right along with her.

So she smiled as they continued to plan their lives together.

**

In the middle of December, in the middle of a snow storm, Rachel’s water broke while she was watching TV on the couch. She called Puck before she got off the couch, knowing it was going to take a while for him to get to her. She insisted she was okay and that he didn’t need to rush, that they had plenty of time. After hanging up, she got off the couch and started to head toward her room to change. She called her daddy on the way up and told him that she was going into labor. And that they needed a new couch cushion.

She got in the shower and washed off, slipping into clean clothes and picking up her overnight bag that had been packed by her door for two months now. She ambled back downstairs and put her coat with her bag, continuing to watch TV while she waited for her fiancé.

Half an hour later, she heard his truck grumbling in the driveway and she stood to meet him at the door. He smiled brightly and kissed her. “You ready?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

She started having intense contractions on the drive to the hospital, but they were very far apart and they were only ten minutes away as the last one ended. She had called the doctor from the car, and she said she would be there about the same time they were.

Getting to her room and admitted was a quick process and the anesthesiologist was coming down within ten minutes.

**

Four hours later, her baby girl was placed on her chest in a blanket. She beamed down at her and reached for Noah’s hand. “Look at her! She’s beautiful!”

“You both are,” he smiled proudly.

She sat up and held the tiny little girl up for him to snuggle close to his chest. Reaching up to stroke her rosy little cheeks with her finger tip, her smile never faded. “Meet your daddy, Leila.”

After talking for months, it finally sunk in. Hard. He was her daddy. He didn’t donate the sperm, but that wasn’t what made a real father anyway…he learned that one from his own dad. His eyes were wet as the baby poked her arm out of her blanket, waving it in the air. He took the tiny hand in his own and let out an overjoyed laugh as she gripped his thumb with her whole hand.

**

Once Leila was born, Puck unofficially moved in with the Berrys. He did more than his share of caring for their little girl, going to work to continue saving money and provide for them in the meantime.

**

Three years later, after a simple wedding in Lima, a lot of saving and strategic organizing, Rachel was starring in NYU’s spring production. With her husband and their beautiful daughter in the front row cheering the loudest.


End file.
